Dive Brief:
- PepsiCo made gains in sustainable sourcing after adjusting its sustainability program’s targets last year, according to an annual report from the food giant published this month.
- The Doritos maker said 70% of its ingredients were sustainably sourced in 2025, up from 66% the year prior. The company defines an ingredient as sustainably sourced if they make up more than 0.01% of annual supply volume and clear a structured risk assessment process.
- PepsiCo is pursuing a goal of having 90% of ingredients sourced sustainably by 2030, when it also aims to have roughly 10% of remaining volumes actively progressing toward more sustainable practices. In 2025, approximately 2% of volumes met that criteria.
Dive Insight:
PepsiCo, which has published an annual report evaluating its sustainability efforts for more than 10 years, adjusted its goals and methodology last year. The revamped targets included lowering the threshold for success on sustainable sourcing.
Prior to last year’s adjustments, PepsiCo aimed to source 100% of ingredients sustainably by 2030, including key crops from third parties. The company adjusted the goal “to what we have confidence we can achieve, while retaining aspiration to make progress on 100% of our key ingredients,” it said in a press release.
Key ingredients that qualify as sustainably sourced include rice, cornmeal, coconuts, raisins, tomatoes, cocoa, palm oil and cane sugar, per the company’s 2025 guidelines.
PepsiCo is also still aiming for deforestation-free sourcing by 2030 but did not provide an update on this area in the latest report. However, it did report spreading regenerative agricultural practices to 4.7 million acres in 2025, up from 3.5 million the year prior. The company aims to reach 10 million acres by 2030.
The company also reworked its emissions targets in 2025, specifically lowering its target for scope 3 reductions by 2030 to 30% from 40%. However, the company did not provide an update on its emissions in the 2025 report, noting “progress would be reported at a later date.”
PepsiCo did not respond to a request for more information, including about its scope 3 emissions reduction efforts. In last year’s report, the company said it had reduced scope 3 emissions by 12% compared with a 2022 baseline.
PepsiCo isn’t the only consumer packaged goods company that faced uneven performance across its sustainability emissions in 2025. General Mills hit on certain targets, such as for waste and water use, but also retrenched when it came to emissions reductions. Meanwhile, Kenvue surpassed its goal for reducing virgin plastic use in packaging but failed to meet a target of making all packaging recyclable or refillable by 2025.
